21-DAY CHALLENGE – HOW TO PRACTICE AFFIRMATIONS

This is the beginning of your transformation, In this post, you will know what exactly are positive affirmations, how do they work and how can you make the most of this challenge to see a difference in your life.

What are positive affirmations?

Affirmations are phrases that will evoke a positive state of mind, and that will help you to replace your negative thinking and self-talk that is keeping you from moving forward in your life.

Positive Affirmations can help you visualize your desire, and by maintaining that image in your mind, they will gradually get stored in your subconscious mind. Once your subconscious mind believes this is real and possible, you will start to act more differently and positively. This change in thinking and behaving will lead you to reach your objectives.

Practice affirmations

The best way to work with affirmations is by pairing your practice with a self-assessment exercise that will allow you to discover the thoughts and patterns that are keeping you from enjoying life and acting in a more empowering way. This way when you choose or create your positive affirmations, you will target those negative thoughts that are continually appearing in your mind.

Daily practice

There´s so much going around positive affirmations and is very common to see some affirmations in our Facebook feed or Instagram, but do you really know how to practice them or how do they work?

It is important that you have a clear picture of how affirmations work so that you can practice them correctly and get the best out of this challenge.

Usually, at the beginning of your practice, you will need to repeat the affirmation or affirmations several times a day. This is because what we want is to replace our old way of thinking, and we can only do that by consciously choosing more positive thoughts and a better attitude.

Morning routine

Start your day by focusing on the good things. Is always a good practice to start with a gratitude practice. Just take a few moments to think about the things you do have. And be grateful for it. This practice will put you a better mood instantly, the perfect mood to start with your affirmations because your mind is not thinking about the negative stuff or the stress you constantly carry around.

There are a couple of ways you can practice your affirmations:

By time – establish your practice time, it could be 5 or 10 minutes, it could very well be 2 minutes. And repeat your list of affirmations constantly for that period of time.

By repetitions – establish the number of times you would like to repeat your affirmations, it could be 10 or 20 times.

It doesn’t matter which method you choose, the important thing here is that you repeat the affirmations mindfully. The minute you start focusing on something else or start feeling that you can’t achieve it is better to think about something nice that is entirely different from the affirmation or the situation at hand. Come back to your repetitions once you are calm and in a more positive state of mind.

Remember, in order for the affirmations to work, your subconscious needs to believe it, it cannot work if you are thinking of something else while you repeat them or if you are visualizing yourself with the opposite result.

Night routine

Before going to bed, and this should be the last thing you do before going to sleep, start by focusing on all the good things that happened during the day, try to practice gratitude and note at least five things that you are grateful for.

After that, practice your affirmations and visualize yourself in the condition you are trying to get while you do the repetition.

During the day

Try to take the time to repeat your affirmation during the day.

Try to pay attention to your mood during the day. Every time you feel stressed or in a bad mood try to focus on something else, try a little bit of meditation, or just take five minutes to focus on your breath.

Things that will enhance your practice

Commit yourself

Make a commitment to fully engage in this practice, and make a habit to repeat your affirmations daily at least twice a day. Be consistent and make an effort to stay motivated throughout this challenge, I can assure you that by the end of the 21 days you will see improvements in your life, and you will have identified those areas you need to be more focused for you to keep investing in yourself.

Mindfulness

Is always better to be perfectly conscious when you are repeating your affirmations if you are not paying attention to what you are saying or thinking you are just wasting your time.

Be mindful, repeat your affirmations and try to pay attention to the way they make you feel. The feeling should be something nice as if you have already achieved it.

Calm and relax yourself

If you are stressed or worried, take a minute to calm yourself down. Focus on your breath, and try to breathe deeply, slowly release your breath. Do this several times until you are fully relaxed.

Journaling

A perfect way to start changing your habits and include your affirmations in your morning and night routine is to use a journal. There are plenty of journals that will help you achieve this, just be sure to include your affirmations in your routine.

Positive statements

If you are creating your own affirmations be careful to choose positive words and phrases, for example, if you are trying to lose weight, don’t focus on being fat or on the weight you want to lose. So avoid creating affirmations like: I’m not fat, I’m losing weight This kind of statements will only bring your attention on the negative feeling of getting rid of the weight.

The goal here is that you feel good with the affirmation and that it creates a positive image of yourself in your mind.

Use present tense

For your subconscious to believe what you are saying you have to tell it as if it were happening as of now. Try to avoid using future tense in your affirmations.

List of affirmations

During this challenge you will see a lot of affirmations, choose the ones you feel comfortable with or create your own. Create a list of affirmations for you to repeat every day. Group them by subject; each day work on a particular topic so that you can concentrate your effort on it.

Your 21-Day Challenge starts today

Today you will begin your transformation journey. It is not magic, or a miracle is a progressive way of changing the way you think. You won’t see this change happening in a few days, but I can assure you that little by little you will start to feel the difference, in the way you talk, in the way you interact with other persons and eventually in all your surroundings.

Day 1 - Boost your self-esteem - 21-Day Affirmations Challenge In the first phase of this 21-day challenge, we will focus on working on ourselves, on building the structure that will sustain our change. That means we will create a positive self-image and change our...